Banks among those who received Fed minutes early

WASHINGTON (AP) — Employees at JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs Group, Wells Fargo and Citigroup were among those to receive market-sensitive information from the Federal Reserve a day early, according to an email list provide by the Fed on Wednesday.

The Fed said early Wednesday that minutes from the March 19-20 policy meeting were inadvertently emailed to more than 100 congressional staffers and trade group officials on Tuesday afternoon. Later Wednesday, the Fed made the email list public, which also included employees of the nation’s largest banks.

The Fed released the minutes to the public at 9 a.m. EDT Wednesday — five hours before the scheduled release time. Fed officials also notified federal regulators of the mishap and asked the Fed’s inspector general to investigate procedures for releasing minutes.